Leavings

Kouchibouguac National Park is situated along the northeastern shore of New Brunswick. It was established in 1969 to preserve a section of the Canadian Maritime Plain region and sweeping coastal dunes . The park's establishment brought about the cumulative expropriation of approximately 250 families - 1200 residents from the region—most of whom were Acadian, a people sensitive to a history of forced removal. Fifty-five years later, the residue of past lives still lingers in the landscape; Apple trees grow wild in clearings, standing as markers of where homesteads once stood. A cemetery with a white picket fence running along the road sits empty, having lost its church. Concrete steps, abandoned in the woods, the only remnant of a community’s former school. This project delves into the relative discourse and theory surrounding connection to place, abandoned landscapes, memory, and nostalgia to begin understanding the emotional and physical complexities of a landscape shaped by erasure, such as Kouchibouguac. This research investigates architecture’s potential to serve as a conduit for collective memory, an aperture for recounting a landscape’s history, and a means to engage new visitors as well as those with a deep history and connection to the land.